


the places you'll go

by lionlannister



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Parental Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 11:33:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15193877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionlannister/pseuds/lionlannister
Summary: Poe-introspection fic of his childhood through his parents return from the war and his leaving for the New Republic. Mostly canon compliant but I tweak a few things and I have a really specific thought about Poe's relationship to the force that is in no way canon.in theory this is part one of a much longer work spanning poe's childhood through tlj and then become MY view of post-tlj but we'll see if i get around to that at any point.





	the places you'll go

Most kids are born after the war, after the death star is blown from the sky, after the Empire is on the run and dying. Poe Dameron is not. Born in the middle. Born under the shadow of the Death Star. Born to parents who know the cost of war better than so many others do or ever will. Parents that know the only people that ever get to see the end of war are those that die. It’s a sign of trusts, hope maybe, he supposes as he gets older, that they were willing to risk that much. Risk him. Too a war that did not seem to have an end. But it doesn’t matter now (except it does. except that it always will.) because he’s born and raised and he might grow up in peace but the shadows of war never really leave the edges of his vision. Wars leave marks that will last generations. 

When Kes and Shara are off planet and he’s left with his grandparents his bright eyes will gaze up at the stars and though every thought is clouded with fear he knows, one day, he’ll soar among them. Like his mother before him. He feels it like he feels his pulse, constant and confident in his veins, even though he is too young to put it into words. Sitting on his Abuela’s hip and waving to the stars like they’re hid friends. They are, he wants to say, they know my name because I have always been one of them. But he won’t know how to say that for a few more years, and when he does learn he’ll learn that the words don’t make sense to anyone else anyway. There are days of fear, Empire ships spotted close by, parents missing scheduled calls, but the stars? They shine bright whenever he sees them, a comfort on the nights when he can hardly breathe through his fear and potential for grief. He prays to them like some might pray to a god or the force, asks them to watch over his parents, to send word that they’re okay, to make sure this war ends so that they get to see him grow up. They don’t talk back but he feels them all the same. A warmth spreading through him that later on someone will say was all on his head, a boy with a penchant for hurting kids he sees as weaker, and Poe has never been weak. So he’ll punch the boy in the face. Not for the words against his start but the way he treats others, the son of soldiers fighting for the whole galaxy and he’s nothing less than their child, he won’t let things like that stand. That’s the day he learns to throw a punch, his father puts a hand on his shoulder and tells him that he did the right thing standing up for other people but if he’s going to pick a fight he’s going to know how to do it right. But that’s later. After the war. When the stars aren’t his only protector. 

Poe is still young, too young, the first time he sneaks out of his bedroom window and climbs onto the roof to spend the night up there. The jungles breathes around him, the other homes in the colony far enough away that the lights do not disturb his perfect view and he smiles, wide and toothy and for the first time since his birth the Empire doesn’t seem so scary. It will come back later, when he climbs down at the sound of his abuela searching for him, the cold fear that comes from not knowing where his parents are, if they’re alive, if they remember him, will creep back in and drain the smile from his face. It happens too quickly but for those moments on the roof? Poe knows, with a dangerous certainty, that he will be a pilot. His mama promised him, the last time she was home, that when the war was done she would teach him to fly and he planned to hold her too that. Plus it helps with the fear, to imagine a galaxy where she’s here teaching him instead of blown into space, instead of killed in some battle that will be taught in history lessons. She cannot die because she has a promise to keep. 

And it works. They come home. They come home beaten and weary and with ghosts in their eyes but they’re home and that’s all that matters to Poe for a long time. At first they almost look like strangers and it is his abuela who pushes him out from behind her to greet them, the bright eyed and curly haired boy who had dreamed of their return now faced with it and he is afraid not that they might be strangers, not that they might go away again, but that he might prove himself unworthy of the pain and the war. He’s young but not a fool, knows that they fought not just for him but he was a driving force of it. The desire to give him a better galaxy to grow old in. He wants to be worth that. He is, was the moment he was born, he’ll learn later that just being born is reason enough to fight a war for someone. That everyone born deserves a chance to live safely and happily. (much, much later he’ll learn this brutally. he’ll carry this into war. he’ll think of this while strapped to a chair. but that’s all later. there’s years of happiness first. ) For now he feels his mother’s arms wrap around him tightly, feels her lift him in her arms and he knows it isn’t the same as flying but it feels like it might be better. His father’s face buried in his hair and his mother’s tears on his shirt and Poe thanks the stars for keeping them safe for him. 

It takes the ma few weeks to settle into a routine and it never really settles. Not fully. Kes never stops waking up before the sun. He keeps a blaster hidden by the bed. Poe never asks him about it. Not after the time he sees his hand reach for it at the sound of an animal coming close to the house. They’d been laughing, Poe hanging off his father’s shoulders and then a noise, so soft, so nothing that Poe had barely even heard it. But Kes did. Kes went still as stone and his hand reached for the weapon at the same time as his grip on his son tightened, like he was about to try and cover Poe’s body with his own in case of blaster fire. It wasn’t anything serious, nothing that would require a weapon, but still he kept it because he was afraid that the next time a noise happened it would be something much worse. Poe didn’t ask. And he didn’t touch the blaster. Shara had trouble sleeping, both of them did he suspects, but it was always his mother that he heard during the middle of the night, maybe that was because his dad had long since learned to walk silently on much worse terrain than this, but Poe didn’t sleep well either so he heard her most night. He didn’t say anything about that either. His abuela had told him when they came home they might be different. “Things happen in war, child, things happen and they cannot be undone.” Those are some of the word Poe will repeat to himself over the years, and the lesson in what they mean starts when his parents come home. 

They don’t come home alone. Not really. They come home with a gift and he’s told, with wide and fascinated eyes, that it’s a gift from Luke Skywalker. Poe might have been safe, as safe as you can get at least, on Yavin IV but he still knew that name. Still knew who he was. And when his mama showed him the tree, just a little sapling, and told him that Luke had given it to her as a thank you, that they were being entrusted with it’s safety because it was important, Poe took that too heart. He’s too little to really help with the planting, mostly he watches from the side as his papa digs a hole in the ground of the ranch, it’s close to Poe’s bedroom window and listens while he’s told the ways that he can help it grow big and strong. After his parents have gone inside Poe sits with the tree, like he can keep it safe that way, he doesn't touch the still weak looking branches or leaves. Just looks at it. Luke Skywalker almost died for this, his mother almost died for this, he’ll make sure that nothing happens to it.

That day, in the bright sun, with the sound of his parents laughing in the house, is the first time he feels the tendrils of something he cannot yet name reaching out for him from the small, struggling tree. It feels. Warm. Like sitting next to a fire. Like taking the fire inside. It feels questioning and determined, curious, just like Poe has always been. It’s the first time. It’s far from the last. 

The tree grows faster than it should but for the most part that doesn’t surprise the Dameron family, it’s a Force Tree, of course it’s special. But when Poe, a little bit older now, a little bit bigger vocabulary, tries to explain the way the tree and he seem to have a connection? Well, that does come as a bit of a shock to his parents. He’s still young, so young, that he only sees being a jedi as a marker of greatness, as something amazing, not something dangerous. And force sensitivity has never run in either side of their family. Shara and Kes call Leia, ask for her advice or for a way to get in touch with her brother. Poe tries to make rocks float. He can never manage it but he still tries, if they’re worried then it must be for a reason, right? Leia comes to visit, brings Han along but they’d left their baby boy in the protection of her brother for the time being. Luke sent along a message promising he’d come himself if Leia believed that Poe was force sensitive but his nephew’s ability was certain already and a baby with those abilities was dangerous.  
Two things become clear the moment Poe’s eyes land on the two generals

He would fight for Leia Organa too.  
He would marry Han Solo.

Later he’ll tell his parents both of those things and they’re kiss his forehead, tell him they love him, tell him that Han is taken, tell him that they hope he doesn’t have to fight. None of those words will land and he’ll continue to pine for both of them in drastically different ways. Poe won’t remember this as the moment he came out to his parents but they will. He’ll grown up knowing that they love him, that they accept him, and when he really does come out at age fourteen he doesn’t feel afraid for even a moment. 

Leia smiles at him when she sees him and her eyes widen only slightly, not enough for Poe to notice, but his parents do and he can see the way their shoulders tense so he tenses too, backing up against his father’s legs and looking up into his face. “What’s wrong?” His voice feels small, he is small, and Shara grins at her son and goes down on her knees in front of him.

“Nothing’s wrong, mijo, we brought Leia here to meet you. After what you said about the tree and the force?” She waits for him to nod before continuing, they’ll never lie to him. “We just wanted someone we trusted, someone that knew the force better, to meet you, make sure you were okay. Is that alright?” The fear dissipates from his eyes at that and he nods, looking back to the new woman. 

“It’s good to meet you Poe, I’m Leia Organa.” He knows that, of course, he’s seen holovids of her before and heard stories but seeing an image and seeing the person are very different things. He’d known that when he would get to talk to his parents versus having them here. And it’s different here too. Though he can’t really explain why yet. 

He can see it now, though, the way the force swirls around her. It swirls around everyone in different ways. His mother is bright and flowing, his father strong and resolute. And Leia? She’s like a fire in his eyes but not the kind that he’s afraid of, the way fire keeps people safe by warding off dangers in the middle of the night, the way you need it to keep you warm, the danger is still there but it isn’t directed at him. So he trusts her because his parents do, because he knows her name, and because the force tells him he can. Poe moves closer to her, unafraid, and gives her a grin. “Nice t’ meet you.” Polite enough that she grins and he hears Han chuckle. “I ain’t been able to make anythin’ float but I swear I can see the force, I mean it, I wouldn’t lie!” No one had accused him of lying but he worries they will, doesn’t want anyone to think of him as the type of person that would lie about something important. But Leia nods and runs a hand over his curls. 

“I don’t think you’re lying, Poe, I can feel it.” That causes his shoulders to fall, some weight he hadn’t known he was holding up now falling to the wayside. “But it’s not the same as my brother.” And you, I can feel it. But he doesn’t say that, not yet at least, because she’s still talking. “You said you can see it? What does it look like?” 

His parents had asked him the same question and he hadn’t known how to explain it so he sucks his lower lip between his teeth and thinks for a long moment. She knows the force, more than his parents, maybe he can think of the words. “It’s like-I don’t know.” His frustration is growing but the comfort of his parents behind him helps some, the gentle pulse of the force under his skin helps too. “Maybe I can show you!” He tugs on her hand. “The tree, its cause’a the tree.” He pays little mind to anyone else intent on pulling Leia out the back door and into the space he’s carved out for himself. “Papa says when it’s bigger he’ll help me build a treehouse in it, Luke Skywalker gave it to us, and this started cause of the tree.” He rattles off while they walk and only stops, dropping her hand, when they’re standing under the limbs of the tree. 

For a moment he’s silent though not still, his feet moving and walking around the tree quickly, show it off to her. Leia’s head is tilted to the side slightly as she looks between the foliage and the boy at her feet, a boy who seems even more energized by the proximity but focused as well. His eyes are sharper and more confident, he doesn’t seem to struggle as much to explain what he’s feeling when he tries again. “I can see it ‘round you.” Poe looks up at Leia, smile wide, and nods like he thinks that will do the trick. “It’s gold but…” A small, curly head tilts slightly as he chews on his lower lip, certain of the word he wants but not certain if he should actually say it out loud. “Sad, it’s sad.” His parents had taught him to always be honest and that seemed more than being polite. “Sorry.” But he doesn’t like bringing that up even if he doesn’t know why the force swirls around her in a way that reminds him of sadness. 

But Leia doesn’t seem upset with him, reaching out to ruffle his hair fondly and give him a grin though he is observant enough to see the way it doesn’t quite go all the way to her eyes. “You’re a very smart young man, aren’t you? Very empathetic.” His face scrunches up in confusion at the word. “I mean, you’re good at telling what other people are feeling, aren’t you?” It’s phrased as a question but she seems to already know the answer so when he nods she does too and takes a seat at the base of the tree, making them closer to eye level. He’s seen vids of her, heard his parents stories and it suddenly crashes down on him. The reason people follow her into battle. The reason people look to her for hope and help. Leia’s hand settles on his head for a moment, ruffling his curls in a way that reminds him of his parents and sets him at ease. He already had been, the way the force swirled around her was sad but brilliantly bright. 

“I can see the way it changes some.” He kicks his feet in the dirt under the tree, leaving marks there. “When my momma or papa are sad, it changes.” He can’t really tell how, can’t really tell why but he knows the difference in their smiles. There are nights he wakes up to them both asleep in a chair in his room, like he’s the one that left and not them. When he looks up again his dark eyes are wide and kind but fierce, the way they will be years later when he stands in front of her and gives up his post at the New Republic. 

She smiles at him and he smiles back. Sometimes things are easy. He smiles easily, he makes people laugh easily, they like him, and he wants to put her at ease too. “I’m sure having you here with them makes those times easier.” Her voice is soft like she is telling him a secret and he looks back at the house where he can still hear his parents laughing with Han. He appreciates that she doesn’t lie to him, say that his parents are fine and happy like nothing bad ever happened to them. 

Brushing his hand across his face to wipe away any tears Poe nodded, the dirt that streaked across his cheeks happened so often that he never even noticed it, more used to be dirty than he is clean at this point. There was freedom on Yavin IV, he’d heard his parents say that, freedom for him to grow and run and play without fear. At least, with less fear than other more populated planets might have. “Am I a jedi?” Poe’s young, small, but he hates how small his voice sounds in that moment. It sounds like he’s begging the answer to be yes. 

The way Leia smiles at him makes the answer clear even before she speaks so he nods and looks away from her. “But you’re something else, Poe Dameron, something wonderful.”

It takes a few weeks for Luke to come, setting up a new Jedi Academy takes work and Poe didn’t want to take him away from his students, his real students, so he made his parents promise that they wouldn’t try and make him come sooner. When he shows up, piloting his own X-Wing, Poe is nearly bursting out of his skin with excitement. Some level of trepidation but his parents taught him to take his fear and use it, not let it control him. Fear was good, they said, it meant he wasn’t stupid, but he couldn’t let fear consume him and stop him from living his life. So he used it, transferred it into energy and drive. He was mostly using that too propel him up higher and higher in trees right now but he’s certain it’ll come in handy later on in life too. The moment the jedi stepped off the ship in his flight suit Poe ran to him, escaping the grip his mom had on his shoulder in his excitement. He’d never met a jedi before and he’d been raised on personal stories of them from his parents, that was too much excitement for him to sit still through. “Luke Skywalker!” It’s not a question or a greeting and he hears his parents laugh in the background. The man gives him a wide grin and Poe can feel the warmth that comes off him.  
“Poe Dameron.” He grins, gets down on his knees in front of the boy and puts his hands on his shoulders to make him stand at least slightly more still. “Ah, I see what my sister was talking about.” The words don’t break his heart like he expects them too, maybe that means he’s okay with not being a jedi, maybe it means he’s meant for something more. “Come on, let’s go inside.” He keeps a grip on Poe’s shoulder to directs him back towards his family and home. 

They don’t talk much, not about the things Poe is desperate to hear about at least, not over dinner which is more about catching up for the adults and Luke watching Poe closely as he interacts with his parents. It’s only afterwards, when Poe is starting to drift to sleep leaning against his mother that on the couch that Luke speaks, seriously and solemnly like a wise teacher and not the joyful pilot he had been at dinner. “Poe isn’t force sensitive, not in the way that jedi children are.” Poe feels the words but they bring no disappointment, the sight of the X-Wing had made his heart sore so highly that he knew what his path was now. Force sensitivity or no, he was going to be a pilot. The jedi’s voice is soft and though he’s speaking to his parents Poe is certain the man knows that he’s awake so he sits up slightly, trying to force his eyes open. “He’s got a connection to the force, my guess is it came from the tree but I can’t be certain.” He stumbles over his words and his youth shows for a moment, his inexperience, but Poe trusts his words because they feel right. “Poe, will you look at me, I know you’re tired but just a few minutes and then you can go to bed, promise.” 

Nodding, Poe leaned himself fully against the back of the couch to keep his head up. “I want you to look at me, at the force around me like you did for Leia, and tell me what you see.” It’s a request, not framed as a command. “As best you can.” 

It’s odd for him, to try and find the language to describe what he sees but he tries, scrunching his eyes and staring at Luke for a long moment. “It’s blue but there’s some green too, like the sky when it’s about to storm.” He almost feels silly for what he’s saying, how can a person look like a sky about to storm? But his parents are on either side of him and they’re smiling encouragingly. “Leia’s was sad, a little, your’s is too but it’s different.” He doesn’t have the vocabulary to expand on that but he hopes it’s what Luke wanted. “It’s bright and steady but...new.” He stumbles over the last word but then settles back into the couch. “Papa is sturdy, like a tree with roots that go deep, he’s brown and green and all the colors of the jungle.” Luke hadn’t asked for that and he feels Kes tense slightly beside him for just a moment before pressing kiss to his curls which he takes as encouragement. “Mama is bright like a lighting strike, blue and purple and silver like the night sky. Like a shooting star.” Chewing on his lower lip Poe looked up at his mother. “Is that okay?” Not that he has any control over it but her smile is a comfort anyway. 

“Of course, mijo, it’s more than okay, it’s wonderful.” 

They put him to bed after that, both his parents kiss his head and tell him they love him before leaving the room with the door ajar. That’s how he hears them talking in hushed voices. Luke tells them about his theory that Poe can’t use the force, not in the way he can, but he can see it in a way that no one else can because even for him it doesn’t swirl around people the way it does for Poe. He can also feel when someone is force sensitive, and Poe hears the mixture of admiration and fear in his voice when Luke makes his parents promise to tell Poe he cannot let anyone know what he can do unless he trusts them completely, it would put not only him in danger but potentially anyone that was force sensitive. Poe nods even though he’s hidden in the darkness of his room, he won’t put anyone in danger. “There’s something else, something I’ll need to test again in the morning.” Luke pauses and Poe hers his father stand up and start to pace, a clear sign that he wants the other man to just spit it out instead of making them wait. “When he focuses on me, and Leia sid the same thing happened to her, it’s like our abilities increase and I don’t think he knows he’s doing it, that could be incredibly dangerous if he comes in contact with someone that isn’t in control or someone discovers what he can do, someone who has fallen to the dark side.” Those words make him shiver, it was easy enough to convince himself that the dark side was gone when he was under the sun and laughing but at night it was harder to shake the shadow of war that loomed over them still. The knowledge that the dark side could never really be gone. After that the adults head to bed, Luke going to the guest room, and Poe shuffles back into his own bed and tries to sleep while thoughts of trees and stars and jedi run in his mind. 

In the morning Luke and Poe sit under the force tree and Luke confirms his fears about Poe’s influence on the force sensitivity of other people. That day, and many days afterwards, are spent with the jedi master under the tree teaching him to close that up so that his energy didn’t leak into someone against his will. Like walls he could put up around his mind to stop from spilling over and making others stronger, and it would supposedly give him some protection against a force user trying to invade his mind. ( that will be tested later, it will be proven true, but not true enough to spare him or anyone in the end. ) In the day before he leaves to go back to his students Luke teaches him to take the walls down, to pour his power into someone on purpose to test the limits of what he can do and judging by the way it makes both of them react he seems to be able to force a decent amount of power into Luke. Poe feels weak afterwards, collapsing onto the ground and Luke carries him back into his bed and tells his parents about what they’d learned that day.

Poe is there to see Luke off in his X-Wing and pulls a promise of a future visit out of the jedi before he flies away. He keeps the walls in place almost always, only letting them down when he’s alone with his parents because he knows despite never being told that neither of them are force sensitive. The guards block his ability to amplify the force sensitivity of others but no other part of what he can do and that only grows as he does, his range grows greater and he learns how to read the way energy swirls around people better. The force is in everyone even those that can’t use it, and Poe can see it in all of them. The angry red and storming ind of a boy in his school who picks a fight with him one day over something young and foolish, the worry that comes out pale and weak from his parents when they rush into school after the fight, the energy of brightness, of ferocity that comes over his father as he teaches Poe to fight. Kes and Shara know their son well enough to know that he’s not going to stop getting in fights, he rarely starts them himself and when he does it’s always to protect someone else so telling him to stop doesn’t seem to be much of an option. Teaching him win, however, is a perfect option.  
\---------  
The day they bury Shara Bey is sunny, it feels like it should be raining but it isn’t and Poe is irrationally angry with the sky for daring to be bright when his mother is in the ground now. They bury her on a hill, the highest near their ranch, and mark her grave so they can always find it. As a man speaks words about how brilliant and kind she was Poe holds tightly onto his father’s hand, trying to take some of his sadness into his own smaller body even though he’s carrying so much of his own it feels like he’s going to choke on it.  
She’d faded so quickly, her son and husband barely had time to say goodbye but now she was just. Gone. The night after they buried her, when their house was filled with people telling them how sorry they were, how much she would be missed, Kes pulled his son outside with a gentle hand holding his much smaller one. He didn’t stop walking until they were at the tree line and the noise from their house had faded. Going down on his knees so that they were eye level es put his hands on Poe’s shoulders, squeezing them gently and looking into his son’s eyes with his matching ones. “I know it doesn’t make it any better, I know it doesn’t help how much it hurts because nothing will but I know that your mama is watching over us, over you, and she always will be.” Tears streamed down his face and Poe couldn’t take his eyes away from them because he had never seen his father cry before. “I’m sure that if you look into the force you’ll see her.” His voice broke at that and Poe knew that his father was right, he could see her and feel her but his dad couldn’t, he didn’t have a connection to the force. Reaching out with his arms Poe wrapped them around his dad’s neck, tugging him into a hug at the same moment that Kes broke down crying into his son’s shoulder. “She loved you more than anything in the world, she’s with the stars now, you hear me? She’s with the stars watching us.” The words are muffled into Poe’s shirt but he hears them in his soul. And when his eyes go to the sky he nods, the stars had always been his protectors and for a moment he hated them for having his mother when he didn’t. 

“I love you, papa.” His voice feels so small and weak but he means the words with every ounce of fire in his body, and there has always been a great deal of that in him. “You can cry on me, I don’t mind, we don’t have to go back to the house.” In truth he doesn’t want to either, everyone there is too loud and he can’t stand it, not right now. “Let’s go camping.” Kes pulls away from his shoulder, wiping tears from his eyes, and grinning at his son. 

That’s exactly what they do, they go camping. Which does mean they have to go back to the house to get supplies and kick everyone out but all of them seem to understand. They’re gone for a week, moving through the jungles together easily and spending nights sleeping under the stars or a tent the one night it rains. Kes shows him basic survival, teaches his son to make a fire, to find plants nearby that are safe to eat, and makes him eat a bug. It’s the first time that both of them laugh hard enough they double over laughing. Kes apologizes through his laughter and tears, promises he hadn’t meant for him to really eat it he had just been joking but Poe was too stubborn to just drop the bug and when he’d stuffed it into his mouth the look of shock and horror on his dad’s face had been worth it anyway. 

That’s the start of a tradition, from that point on whenever Poe was out of school for a while and Kes didn’t have any pressing work on the ranch they would go camping even if it was just for a day or two. Some nights when they were lying under the stars Kes would tell his son stories of the war, stories of his mother most of all, and stories about the times before the war. Poe would tell his dad about his dreams of being a pilot, about the boys he likes, about how he sometimes dreams the stars are calling to him. They listen and they learn and it’s perfect except for the missing soul that should be beside them.

Poe grows older and taller, though not that much taller, eventually he’s nearly as tall his father and he helps more around the ranch, they still go camping whenever they can. Kes can’t fly, doesn’t know how, but his friend L’ulo does and so he teaches Poe on the A-Wing that had been Shara’s during the war. He takes to it like a natural, the lessons he’d gotten from his mom as a child are still strong in his mind and he feels like he was born to do this and it shows in his flying, that’s what all the people that watch him say. Even if he’s a natural he works at it every single day, the moment he’s done with school until his father calls him in to do chores or for dinner, and once the ranch is taken care of on weekends Poe is in the air. 

Once or twice he talks his dad into coming with him, it has always been easy for Poe to talk people into things, they like following him and that’s been obvious since he was a young boy. His parents had made sure he never used that against people, never made them do things they didn’t want and made sure that he knew he didn’t deserve people following him just because he could make them, he had to earn being a leader. Because being a leader meant that people trusted him, respected him, and being a leader meant nothing if he forced people into it instead of earning it. His father continued those lessons as he grew, watching Poe as he was with his friends and beaming with pride at the way they all looked to him, at the way he took care of them. 

“I got my acceptance letter.” It’s whispered into the sky, into the stars, and Poe knows that his father heard him even if the only reaction at first is a slightly turning from the sleeping bag beside him. “To the flight academy at the New Republic.” He’d sent in the application, including a holovid of him flying the A-Wing. He and Kes, and everyone in their colony really, had known that he would be accepted from the time he was a boy sitting in his mother’s lap and now he was a young man, the best pilot on the planet already, and itching to explore the galaxy around them. “I can start next semester.” That was still a little bit away, still time for him to help his dad set up for his absence around the ranch but the words hurt to say, as excited as he is to leave he is also terrified of being away from his home and dad for a long time. 

Kes sat up quickly and moved closer to Poe in the fading light of the sunset and put his hands on his shoulders like he had so many times before. “I am proud of you, mijo, I’m always proud of you and the man you’re turning into. Your mother would have been so, so proud of you too, I promise you that.” The words come with a few tears sneaking out of his eyes. “We love you more than anything in the whole galaxy and I can’t wait to see the amazing things you’ll do.”


End file.
